


Apsides

by Theluminousfisheffect



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), It's a fic about the Titanic, it's mostly shenanigans until near the end, mentions of nudity, we all know what happened there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-01-06 00:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21217595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theluminousfisheffect/pseuds/Theluminousfisheffect
Summary: Aziraphale knows what fate awaits all those onboard the Titanic before it even leaves the port.  Crowley has no idea and Aziraphale would very much like to keep it that way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apsis denotes either of the two extreme points (i.e., the farthest or nearest point) in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body (or simply, "the primary"). The plural term, "apsides," usually implies both apsis points (i.e., farthest and nearest); apsides can also refer to the distance of the extreme range of an object orbiting a host body - Wikipedia 
> 
> So I wrote this for [ jawnlma ](https://twitter.com/jawnlma) (go check out her art, you'll love it) because she asked me for a fic where the boys had some shenanigans on the Titanic. We all know how it ends but I promise there is fluff and the usual amount of idiocy for these two first. 
> 
> Thank you to Jawn for reading bits of this as I went along and for helping me through the terrible process which is coming up with a title. 
> 
> With all that said, thank you for reading it and I hope you enjoy it.

Aziraphale dithered. He stood alone at the edge of the ship, next to the handrail and twisted his fingers nervously as the land stretched off into the distance. The ice-blue sea grew around them, slipping in silently to cut them off from the port. Aziraphale kept his eyes trained on it, wringing his hands anxiously as if he expected something to rise up out of the water and swallow them whole. He didn’t know what he was doing there. There was nothing for him to do, besides report back to his head office once it was all over and he could do that just as easily from London, but for reasons he didn’t fully understand, he felt bound to stay. He had stayed for all the others. One more couldn’t hurt. 

“Don’t look so nervous, angel. Haven’t you heard? She’s unsinkable. Apparently, even your lot couldn’t sink her.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened as he turned towards the familiar voice. “Crowley? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know how it is,” he said with a shrug, glancing back out over the growing stretch of water between them and Southampton. A strong breeze gusted over the deck, tugging at the tails of their jackets and Aziraphale reached up to hold his top hat in place, fingers laced in an iron grip around the rim. Crowley didn’t move. “Have a job to do in New York. Trouble to cause, wiles to…wile. I heard about the unsinkable ship and thought “Why not cause some extra trouble on the way over?” My lot’ll be pleased at anything that goes wrong on this.”

“Oh. Yes, yes I suppose they will,” Aziraphale said, looking down at his feet. Unfortunately, so would his side. That was, after all, the purpose of this trip.

“Besides, we’ve been part of lots of history, you and me. Couldn’t miss the opportunity to be here.” Crowley flashed him a cheeky grin and Aziraphale’s stomach swirled with guilt. That was true; they had been to nearly all of the big historical events, almost always together too but this was one that he wished neither of them would be there to witness. He had rather hoped he would get away with being the only one to see it. He hadn’t even told Crowley he was going for that very purpose.

“No, I suppose we couldn’t,” Aziraphale muttered wretchedly to his shoes. He let go of his hat in favour of knotting his fingers together again over the curve of his stomach, trying to ease the queasiness that was growing there.

“Shall we go make ourselves comfortable?” Crowley asked slowly, sensing that the only thing sinking right now was this conversation. “We’re here for the next week now.”

“Yes. All right.”

  


* * *

  


A few minutes later, disaster struck. Almost struck. If you wanted to be precise about it, disaster was about 4 feet away, or 1.2 metres, depending on your preferred method of measuring distance to near-impending doom. 

Aziraphale gaped in horror as the smaller boat was lifted on a crest caused by their movement and plunged back down into the sea. Its mooring lines snapped and the SS City of New York swung around stern-first towards them. He hadn’t expected it to be so soon. They had barely left the port. 

People gathered in groups around the railings, pointing and gasping. A few screams scattered themselves through the air like autumn leaves. Next to him, a little girl who couldn’t have been any older than three, with her hair messily pulled back into two tiny pigtails tied up with beautiful green ribbons, clung to her mother’s skirt, hunching her shoulders up around her ears to shield herself from the screams. Aziraphale felt his blood run cold. This couldn’t be right, could it? There were children, for Heaven’s sake. Innocent children. What could this little girl have possibly done in her life to deserve this fate? 

Their ship had started to slow, its engines ordered backwards to try and prevent the collision with the smaller vessel but it wouldn’t be fast enough. It would never stop itself in time. It was going to happen any second now and they would take the New York with them, even though as far as Aziraphale had understood, it was only the Titanic that was meant to sink. For blasphemy, of all things. All those lives gone, simply because they had chosen to journey on a boat with a company who had claimed even God Herself couldn’t sink it. 

But Aziraphale hadn’t noticed the other boat that had thrown itself into this messy equation. His mind had blanked it out, not wanting to fill himself with false hope that maybe this would be the one occasion on which God would not fulfil Her promises of destruction. He had been there once too often already. It never changed. She always delivered. And Aziraphale always did nothing but watch.

The tugboat, however, chugged on, regardless of whether Aziraphale was paying attention to it or not. And he wasn’t paying attention to it at all. In the midst of the growing panic, his mind had turned to one person, or rather, demon. His eyes moved away from oncoming disaster to Crowley, who was stood next to him in tails and a top hat and hard, shiny black shoes that Aziraphale thought could hardly be comfortable and those dark glasses that he never took off and he found said demon looking remarkably nonchalant about the whole thing. He had one hand deep in his trouser pocket and the other held the top of wooden cane with a golden snake’s head curled elegantly into his palm. He slouched lazily so that his weight was resting more on it than his own legs. The breeze tried to play with the strands of auburn hair poking out from underneath the top hat and failed miserably, finding them much too short to be of any use and Crowley ignored it in return.

Surely by now, he understood what was happening. He must do. Crowley always knew. He was always right there beside Aziraphale, giving out about how unfair all of it was and how cruel and unforgiving and _unholy_ but now, he was wordless. He looked oddly relaxed, angled on his cane and gazing out over the water as if he were watching Shakespeare unfolding on a stage. He wasn’t doing anything, wasn’t saying anything, was taking Aziraphale’s usual role in all of this and in six thousand years, nothing had ever unnerved the angel more. Why wasn’t Crowley…being Crowley?

Aziraphale squinted suspiciously at him and stepped a bit closer, ignoring the horrible sensation of worms in his stomach. He was smirking. There was an undeniable crooked upwards curve to his lips and his eyes were practically twinkling, although that could have also been put down to the reflection of the sun off his glasses.

“Oh, _you_,” Aziraphale exhaled. It came out much more furious than he had anticipated. Crowley turned his head to face him and Aziraphale could see the surprise register on the demon’s face and settle there, even behind the casual shrug that he gave in answer.

“It’s what I do, angel. Relax, no one is going to get hurt. Just thought it would be funny if the humans thought their unsinkable ship was going to be sunk in the first five minutes of leaving port. And I brought New York to us instead,” he added proudly, pointing out to the smaller ship that was drifting aimlessly nearby while the Vulcan tried to tether it and tow it back in again. As if that made anything better. 

“I extended our holiday a little. It’ll take them a while to catch that one,” he tried again when Aziraphale’s wrath didn’t seem to lessen at being told it was all one big joke on his part and all definitely under control. 

“Crowley, it is _not_ funny,” Aziraphale told him snippily, watching the confusion march right over Crowley’s face and set up camp. Aziraphale always put up token arguments over these things, but that was the point. They were tokens. He was never genuinely angry with Crowley over the demonic miracles he did because in the long run, they were mostly harmless and were usually cancelled out by whatever angelic miracles Aziraphale was doing in the opposite direction. A nice, even zero to keep the balance; that was how the Arrangement worked and Aziraphale knew that Crowley was struggling to figure out what line he had crossed this time. It was no different than anything else he usually did. 

Aziraphale could see he was mentally backtracking over their conversation to see what was different about this one; he could read it on every line on his face, in the way his hand tightened around the top of his cane. He was acutely aware that expecting Crowley to guess what was wrong when Aziraphale knew what he knew and Crowley didn’t have the first clue was pointedly unfair but the angel couldn’t bring himself to tell his adversary. He wanted to tell Crowley what was going to happen, wanted to make him leave and maybe ought to but it hardly seemed fitting. What if Crowley somehow stopped it? Aziraphale would be an accomplice to thwarting the Great Ineffable Plan and as an angel, that was widely regarded as one of the worst things he could do.

Aziraphale huffed out a short, angry breath, pretending that the fury was directed solely at the demon standing next to him and looked out over the railings again to watch the escapades as the Vulcan struggled to get the smaller ship back under control. Crowley shifted position awkwardly beside him, taking his weight off the cane so he could fidget with the snake head. He glanced away guiltily, catching sight of the little girl with the green ribbons in her hair and immediately turned his gaze back to the scene he had created.

“No, I suppose it isn’t.” 

  


* * *

  


After that, the trip went – well, it was going, eventually and that was about all that could be said about it. It wasn’t exactly going well but it wasn’t exactly going badly. Yet. It had taken an hour to undo the chaos Crowley had created with his little stunt and set the Titanic a-sail again and Aziraphale was still being rather huffy about it.

“Cheer up, Aziraphale,” Crowley drawled, sliding further down into the bench he was draped across. “We’re headed to France first. You like France. Good food, good wine, good - books. Maybe. We’ll have a nice time.”

“The last time I was there, they tried to cut my head off,” Aziraphale pouted, wriggling self-importantly in his seat.

“They didn’t though,” Crowley pointed out. “And we had crepes.”

“Those were scrumptious,” he admitted, recalling the taste longingly. Thinking about them was making him puckish again. “Oh, but we won’t have time to get off. They’re only picking up passengers and then we have to move on to Ireland.” 

“And I can’t get off there, thanks to good old St. Patrick. What does he have against snakes anyway?” Crowley grumbled, sneering at the nearest unfortunate wall. “None of the ones in Ireland were doing anybody any harm. He could have done with going to Australia. Bet it wouldn’t have been so easy to banish them all when the snakes could fight back.”

“Yes, quite,” Aziraphale answered for politeness’ sake. 

“Looks like we’re on here until America,” Crowley said. “Fancy some alcohol then? We have to pass the time somehow.”

“We would have already been an hour into the journey if it weren’t for your little commotion,” Aziraphale pointed out stroppily.

“Yes, all right. Point taken,” he sighed, tapping his cane against the wooden decking as he stood. “Now are you coming to find something drinkable or are you going to sit here and let that seagull keep eyeing you up?”

Aziraphale glanced down at the bird cautiously and the bird stared right back at him. Aziraphale’s eyes widened. It had been there for a while, doing nothing but eyeing the angel up as if he had a newspaper roll full of chips hidden in his jacket. It was unnerving. 

“Yes. Jolly good. Let’s go inside.”

  


* * *

  


“Angel, the ship is on fire.”

“It’s on what?” Aziraphale sat up straighter in his chair, almost dropping his copy of _The Importance of Being Earnest_. Crowley watched casually as Aziraphale grappled with the book like a wet bar of soap and clutched it carefully against his stomach when he caught it.

“On fire,” he repeated with the same, in Aziraphale’s opinion, frankly astonishing lack of urgency as before. 

“Oh.”

“Has been for days, apparently. Even before they got the first lot of passengers on it.”

“But that’s madness!” Aziraphale exclaimed, ignoring the rather pointed looks he was getting from fellow readers who just wanted some peace and quiet and weren’t that bothered about the fact that the ship they were all bobbing about on was apparently burning down around them. “Surely they wouldn’t – they _couldn’t_ set sail – not with people onboard. The crew mustn’t know,” he trailed off with a lingering sense of dread tied tight around his stomach. This could have easily been divine intervention; all part of the Great Plan, which did, after all, include the sinking of this very ship but it could have just as easily been something that the humans were doing to themselves. Sometimes it was very difficult to tell the difference. The humans did like creating messes for themselves and more often than not, they were much more imaginative and destructive than anything either side could ever dream of. 

“The crew know all right,” Crowley said, sliding into the free seat opposite Aziraphale. He no longer had his cane with him but Aziraphale didn’t have time to wonder where it had gone. “It’s only the passengers who don’t. It’s all been hushed up.”

“Then how do you know? You’re a passenger.”

“I’m a demon. Walking into rooms I’m not meant to be in is part of my job description." [1]

“But surely a fire burning for that long would have spread by now. People would have noticed,” Aziraphale said, clutching at thin straws of logic. The forever optimistic part of himself told him that Crowley had to be wrong. Someone had misheard or lied or sensationalised the story somewhere along the line before Crowley heard about it. The part of him that had seen the worst of humanity throughout the millennia begged to differ. 

“Nah, it’s in one of the coal bunkers. They’ve managed to keep it in there but they haven’t managed to get it out yet either,” Crowley explained. “Give it a few more days.”

“To what? Spread to the decks?” Aziraphale retorted, slightly hysterical. 

“Relax, angel. This happens all the time on these ships. The humans will fix it,” he said, slouching back into the chair. Aziraphale wasn’t so confident that they would. 

“What would they do if they couldn’t put it out?” he asked anxiously. “Hypothetically, of course.”

Crowley looked back at him, a single arched eyebrow the only part of his expression Aziraphale could see with those dark glasses covering his eyes. “Call for help, I suppose. Get everyone off onto the lifeboats or another ship.”

“What if there wasn’t another ship? Or the lifeboats? They don’t have enough for everyone,” he pointed out. 

"They won't need them. It's the Titanic. It’s _unsinkable_,” he grinned.

“So they say.”

“Don’t worry, Aziraphale,” Crowley said, sitting up straighter so he could meet Aziraphale’s eyes. “Nothing is going to happen.”

“Right,” he agreed miserably. “Nothing is going to happen. The humans have it all under control. There are other ships and lifeboats. What could possibly go wrong? Ships make this crossing all the time and nothing ever goes wrong and this one is top of the line. So why would anything happen? Nothing is going to happen, of course not. Silly of me to even think of such ludicrous things.”

Crowley frowned as Aziraphale babbled on, wringing his hands nervously in his lap. The angel was anxious about something but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. Maybe that was why he had been snappy earlier. Was he scared? Of the boat? Crowley tried to recall whether he had ever seen Aziraphale on a ship before. Maybe he didn’t enjoy them the same way Crowley didn’t enjoy horse riding. Satan knows he hadn’t been able to avoid it though, through the centuries. Maybe boats were Aziraphale’s horses; detestable but unavoidable in the circumstances. 

"You're right, angel," he said, softer than before. “Nothing is going to happen.” 

Except Aziraphale knew that wasn’t true at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] It was. Section 13, subsection C, paragraph 4. “Demons shall ignore all human warning signs, including but not limited to; danger and warning signs, keep out, go back, no trespassing and generally all other signs intended to keep humans out of certain places. NB: Demons should, however, probably take heed of the signs warning people to stay out of the lion cages at zoos and any chemicals with a skull and cross bones on them.” [back to text]


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the proper shenanigans begin with these two idiots. This was never meant to be this long but they have a mind of their own and I had no urge to stop so here we are. 
> 
> Featuring a famous scene from the Titanic movie (ish, I’ve never actually watched it.)

“So what are you doing here anyway? Don’t think you ever said.”

“Eating,” Aziraphale answered confusedly, setting down his spoon as he polished off the last of his peaches. He lifted his napkin, delicately patting away the juices from his lips and sighed happily. Oh, the food was good here. The humans had really outdone themselves this time. “And really quite enjoying it. That was divine.”

"No, not - I know what you're doing in the restaurant,” Crowley rolled his eyes so hard, he thought they might fall out of his skull. For someone so smart, the angel could be incredibly dense at times. Either that or he was putting it on specifically to irritate Crowley. He didn’t _think_ it was that but sometimes it was very difficult to tell. Aziraphale could be just enough of a bastard that Crowley hadn’t worked out whether - or when - it was intentional or whether it was purely accidental. “I mean what are you doing here?” he said, gesturing vaguely with both arms to indicate the ship they were currently sailing across the Atlantic in. “What’s in New York that’s so important?”

Aziraphale’s heart stopped in his chest. Technically, he didn’t need it to beat at all, ever, but it was a strange, unsettling feeling to have it happen all the same. His eyes dropped guiltily to the peach juice swirled over his otherwise empty plate and he fidgeted with the napkin, twisting it between his fingers and tapping the table top with it. "Oh, uh - just a – minor miracle, nothing of any major importance. You know what they’re like for details on things. Have you tried the oysters?” he asked, changing the subject quickly. “They’re very good. Not quite as good as what Petronius could do with them but a close second nonetheless.” 

“Aziraphale, oysters were the first course. We both had them. You saw me eating them,” Crowley reminded him flatly. His eyes narrowed slightly and Aziraphale squirmed in his seat, twisting the napkin further.

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said bashfully, hoping that the faint tingle of embarrassment he could feel seeping into his cheeks and the tips of his ears was only something he could feel and not something that was rapidly becoming visible. “Of course. Silly of me. Of course we both had the oysters.”

“Though you’re right about them being second to Petronius’. Don’t think I’ve ever had any quite like that since,” he continued, folding his arms loosely on the table. He leaned forward and even with a table between them, Aziraphale still felt crowded. “Maybe it has something to do with an angel tempting me to have them,” he said with a smirk.

The embarrassment spread like wildfire across Aziraphale’s face and sank down into his stomach, tingling uneasily. “That isn’t fair,” he complained and it wasn’t. He was already contending with having to not be entirely truthful with his travelling companion about the fate that awaited them all. He didn’t have the resources to spare so that he wasn’t caught entirely off guard by comments like that. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. It was a slip of the tongue. Nothing else. Angels don’t tempt people and demons are the last people who need to be tempted.”

"You've tempted people,” he pointed out with a smile so sharp, Aziraphale could feel his fangs lurking behind it, even if they weren’t physically there at that very moment. Crowley picked up his glass and brought it to his lips with a cocky cant of his wrist, never taking his eyes off Aziraphale as he took a slow and deliberate mouthful of wine. The tingling started up again in the pit of Aziraphale’s stomach, this time cascading down his legs and into the tips of his toes until they curled involuntarily in his shoes. He swallowed and reached for his own glass, casting his eyes down to the table cloth. 

“For part of the Arrangement. That’s different,” he protested weakly. “You’ve done miracles in the name of it. It was your idea in the first place!” 

Crowley leaned back in his chair again, grinning proudly to himself. He swirled his wine around the glass nonchalantly and with his free hand, dragged his fingers back through his hair. Aziraphale definitely did not watch his long fingers, especially with any sort of intent of trailing his own fingers through his hair after them to fix it back into position. Or perhaps to mess it further beyond the somehow styled unkemptness that Crowley usually kept it in. Crowley took another long sip of his drink and leaned in again, resting his elbows indecorously on the edge of the table.

“So, any plans for tonight, angel?” he hummed, twirling the wine glass languidly by the stem. Aziraphale started to wonder how much wine Crowley had had already. They had only had a glass or two with dinner which was barely enough to make a human tipsy, never mind an occult being inhabiting a human-looking body. But Crowley was certainly acting inebriated, or at the very least, rather strange. Then again, a lot of what Crowley did sober seemed rather strange to Aziraphale too. Although it was also entirely possible that Crowley had been drinking before dinner.

The angel sat back, folding his hands neatly in his lap and reminded himself sternly not to panic.

“Plans? No. What plans? Why would I have plans? Nothing, no plans here, excluding the Great Ineffable Plan, of course, but that’s always happening so I assume you mean besides that,” he stuttered, doing precisely the opposite. Fortunately, Crowley either didn’t notice or didn’t care to comment.

“Ugh, that plan,” he grimaced. “Bollocks to that plan. I meant something fun, angel, not more work.”

“Crowley, you can’t say that,” Aziraphale reprimanded him. “The Almighty’s Plan is –“

“_Ineffable_,” Crowley drawled bitterly, setting his glass back down. “I know. I’m not bothered about Her plan right now. I’m asking about yours. For tonight.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Right, so my room then.”

“Your room?” Aziraphale spluttered and thanked God that he hadn’t been taking a sip of wine, lest he choke or spit it all down the front of his lovely camel coloured waistcoat. The butterflies in Aziraphale’s gut multiplied until they outweighed the throngs of Heaven, and possibly also Hell, sending cascades of electricity tingling down his arms. His hands twitched as the feeling ran across his palms and he smoothed them over the front of his jacket, hoping to make it stop. That was forward, even for Crowley, and rather unexpected. In six thousand years, Aziraphale had never seen Crowley interested in sex. Certainly he pretended to be every now and again to get humans to succumb to his whims but seeking it out for his own pleasure? Aziraphale wasn’t sure he had ever seen that. And he had certainly never thought that if it did happen that it might be directed towards him.

“Crowley, that’s – well, that’s – ah, you see, it’s –“

“What?” Crowley frowned cluelessly at him. 

“It’s a very kind offer but I rather think that – well, we – ah – that is –“ Aziraphale blustered, smoothing his nervous hands over his jacket again.

“Angel, why do I feel like I’m being rejected?”

“It’s not a rejection, per se. It’s simply that – oh Crowley, we’re on opposite sides. We can’t.”

“We drink in your bookshop all the time. Why not here?” Crowley asked, completely lost. “I went and got some good wine from the kitchen and made it better.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale exhaled and almost sagged in relief and if there was the tiniest trace of disappointment underneath it all, he elected to ignore it. “Oh, you mean – yes. Yes, of course we can do that. I thought you meant…” he trailed off, realising he didn’t have an end to that sentence that he could give.

“What did you think I meant?” Crowley asked and immediately regretted it. Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably, down-casting his eyes and tugged at the ends of his waistcoat and Crowley nearly bit his tongue as the answer slowly sank in. “Ngk. Right. Uhh, I didn’t - that’s not – I didn’t mean – I got wine, I wasn’t – look, I know I’m a demon and all but that’s not –“ he took a deep breath and cut himself off. None of the sentences were coming out right. He took a second to gather himself and decided against continuing any of them. Aziraphale had probably gotten the point.

“Yes. Well.” Aziraphale couldn’t look Crowley in the eyes. “We could still drink the wine. Since you went to all the trouble of procuring it,” he added, flicking his eyes to Crowley’s face, chickening out and looking away again. 

“Yes. Right,” Crowley nodded and tried to shove his glasses, which were already on the bridge of his nose, back into place. “So my room then? I – uh – I have a heater.”

  


* * *

  


That was all it took, in the end, for Aziraphale to end up back in Crowley’s quarters; the promise of a bottle (or bottles) of wine and an awkward encounter both of them were stubbornly pretending to forget the details of. It wasn’t the first time Aziraphale had been in Crowley’s rooms throughout their time together but he could still count them all on one hand. He had long since lost count of the times Crowley had been in his. That was always how it had been; the demon seeking out the angel’s company, ever since he slithered up onto the Eastern Wall and sidled his way under his wing. Aziraphale didn’t see much use in changing their dynamic up after so long. Crowley nearly always sought out Aziraphale, anywhere in the world and well, what was the point of searching for someone who was probably already searching for you? It saved both of you a lot of time if one of you had the sense to stay put.

“Wai’aminute, you’re telling me you know how to paint?” Crowley exclaimed, sloshing his wine dangerously close to the rim of the glass as he sat up in his excitement. “_You_ know how to paint?”

“_Yes_,” Aziraphale grinned, wriggling his shoulders happily. “I learned it in the eigh-nin-no, eight – seven – eight?” he paused, creasing his brows together. “A century,” Aziraphale settled with a smug smile, proud that he had worked himself out of that one. “It was good fun, dear boy. It’s relaxing.”

“You can paint,” Crowley repeated, dropping his head onto his hand with such sloppiness that he almost knocked his elbow off from where it was perched against his thigh. “Oop. You can – what d’you paint? Didn’t do all that church ceiling stuff with the angels an’ things, did ya? Those are very – s’pose they’re meant to be though.”

“Nooo,” Aziraphale shook his head slowly, which was a horrible idea in retrospect. It took the room a few minutes to catch up with his eyes again. Aziraphale blinked and held onto the arm of the plush little armchair he had sunken himself into while he waited for everything to right itself. “No, I painted people mostly. That’s what Madam Le Brun painted. Lots of people wanted their portraits done by her, especially after the Marie Antoinette – thing - so that’s what she showed me.”

“You learned to paint with Madam Le Brun?” Crowley half shouted and this time, he did slosh some wine over his hand and the sofa he was slouched across and the carpet. “Oh, whoops,” he glanced down at the mess he had made and moved his glass to his other hand to suck the droplets of wine from his fingertips. He didn’t stop long enough to think about miracling the stain out of the lush carpet. “So you can – you never told me you could paint.”

“‘m telling you now,” Aziraphale pointed out smugly, sipping at his own drink.

Crowley made a string of noises, probably in protest at that comment but he could just have easily been choking on a mouthful of wine. Words had never been his forte, even when sober. He lifted his glass to his lips, almost missed and took a long, thoughtful gulp. “D’you have any that you did? Any sketches or paintings still lying around a dusty old backroom somewhere?”

Aziraphale shook his head, gentler this time, having learned his lesson the first time and answered coyly into his glass. “No, I don’t have them. They were probably lost in the Rev – Rev – that nasty business with all the – head cutting,” he mimed slicing his hand across his throat and grimaced. It really had been a nasty business. All that blood and beheading. The crepes were still the best Aziraphale had ever tasted, mind.

“You must have _one_ somewhere. I wanna see how you draw.”

“I don’t think I do.”

“Draw one now then,” Crowley said, stumbling to his feet to grab some paper from the writing bureau in the corner. He scrambled around in drawers for a pencil, flinging them open and shut carelessly while he rooted around their contents. Aziraphale finished off the last of his wine, watching the demon with interest.

Finally, Crowley found one with sheer willpower (there hadn’t been a pencil in it when he had started. In fact, he had already checked that drawer once and had found it to be entirely devoid of anything, pencils included) and held it up triumphantly. “Ha! Found it!”

“Crowley, I can’t. We’re - I’m too drunk.”

“Course you can!” Crowley exclaimed, thrusting the paper and pencil into Aziraphale’s chest. “C’mon, angel, I wanna see how well you draw.”

“Crowley, I don’t – what would I even draw?” he protested weakly, accidentally brushing his fingers over the demon’s as he tried to catch the paper. The brief encounter set off sparks in the centre of his chest and Aziraphale breathed a soft, little “Oh,” barely audible as fireworks crackled in his heart. His drunken mind urged him to lean into it, to take Crowley’s hand in his and leave a kiss on his knuckles and his palm and the inside of his wrist, right over his pulse point so that he could feel it jump under his lips and oh dear Lord, he was very drunk. He was starting to confuse the ethereal love he had for everything and romantic love. Of course he loved Crowley, the way he loved books and crepes and sushi and classical music and the gavotte but he wasn’t in love with any of those things. That just wouldn’t do. He needed to get himself back under control before he did something he would regret. 

Crowley took his hand back slowly and stared unblinkingly at the angel. He looked shocked, like someone had just doused him with a bucket of cold water and Aziraphale found himself mildly panicked that he had said some of that out loud or that Crowley had suddenly developed the power to read minds. 

“Uh,” Crowley said eloquently. His poor heart stuttered wildly. “Pencil?” he offered awkwardly, holding it up in front of Aziraphale’s nose. The angel blinked and pulled his head back to make his eyes focus on it.

“Oh. Oh yes, thank you,” he said softly, taking the pencil from Crowley, keeping their fingers well apart this time. “You still haven’t given me a subject.”

“Me.”

“You?” Aziraphale echoed, dropping the pencil into his lap. He almost swore but caught himself at the last second and started fumbling around for it. The pencil, though, had other ideas and rolled off his thigh, down the inside of his jacket and disappeared into the endless abyss known as the side of the chair. “Oh, blast.”

Aziraphale’s hand shot down after it and he caught his thumb on the hard frame of the chair. “Ow! For Heaven’s sake!” he cried, shaking his hand out roughly. He checked his thumb carefully, rubbing the knuckle before he glared at the arm of the chair. “There really was no need for that.”

“Here, lemme get it,” Crowley said, slipping his hand down the side of the chair. Dangerously close to Aziraphale’s thigh. Which neither of them seemed to notice until Crowley’s forearm brushed against the outside of the angel’s leg and Aziraphale bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. Dear _Lord._

Crowley noticed too and a blush started to creep up the back of his neck and into his cheeks. He pulled the pencil out and held it up again to Aziraphale, keeping his eyes cast to the side and pretended he couldn’t feel his skin practically burning where it had touched the angel’s trousers. 

"Thank you," Aziraphale breathed, taking it back, making sure he kept a tighter grip on it this time. 

"No problem,” Crowley licked his lips and sat back on his heels, looking up at Aziraphale. “So where do you want me?”

“Want you?” Aziraphale repeated, his eyes bulging.

“For the drawing,” he answered, wrapping his arms around his knees. “Sofa? S’there enough light there for you?”

“Oh. Yes, the drawing. The sofa is fine,” he nodded and shut his eyes when the room started spinning again. 

“All right,” Crowley clambered to his feet and swayed dangerously to his right. He threw his arms out to catch himself and stayed frozen like that for a few moments until he had checked and was certain that he wasn’t moving without the boat any longer. 

“Okay. All right. Okay. M’good,” he muttered, making his way back to the sofa. He deposited himself back into the seat, stretching his legs out along the length of it and rested his head against his hand, smiling coquettishly at Aziraphale. “Go on, angel, draw me like one of your French girls.”

“I never said I drew girls,” Aziraphale blushed darkly, crumpling the paper slightly in his lap. Crowley had no right to look like that; all hips and long legs and sharp angles. He looked like sin incarnate draped along the sofa, turned on his side and languidly crossing his legs so that one was just in front of the other and his pinky finger stretched just towards the corner of his mouth. He tipped his head slightly when Aziraphale answered and a cheeky grin crossed his face, flashing his sharp teeth.

“All right then, one of your French boys,” he teased.

“No, I didn’t mean – they weren’t all French either!” 

“Okay, draw me like one of your _people_, then,” he grinned wider. It was so easy to tease the angel, especially when he was drunk. He could hardly be expected to resist such a temptation when it was being handed to him on a silver platter.

Aziraphale frowned at Crowley, his brows knitted together and he sat up a little straighter, rolling his shoulders back self-importantly. “Right,” he huffed, smoothing out the paper on his lap. “Oh. Uh, Crowley? Do you happen to have a book? I need something to lean on.”

“Hmm? Oh, let me see,” Crowley rolled off the sofa again and headed back across the room to fish about in some of the drawers. He muttered loudly to himself as he pulled drawers out fruitlessly and slammed them shut again until he opened one and crowed triumphantly.

“Ah! Here!” he lifted the book out and turned on his heels so fast that he lurched drastically to his right, balancing on one foot until he fell sideways, almost right into the desk he had been searching. He stopped and laughed at himself, letting his eyes adjust until the world stopped cartwheeling around him. “Here, angel. Catch!”

Crowley tossed the book underarm across the small space between them and Aziraphale panicked. He hadn’t been expecting it and now a book was coming at his head and his reflexes were currently somewhat subdued thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol they had been drinking. 

“No, no, no, _Crowley!_” he cried, frantically trying to catch it with both hands. What he managed was to miss and knock the book out of the air and onto the floor. It landed with a bang that made Crowley wince. “Ouch!”

“You were supposed to catch it…” he murmured, staring at the book where it lay.

“I know!” Aziraphale cried embarrassedly, bending his fingers and straightening them out again. Pain bloomed in his fingertips and he pouted, examining his fingers but there were no marks to be seen. He felt a little put out. There _should_ be a mark; after all, he had just punched a hardback out of the sky and he felt that at least some reddening of his skin would be nice recognition of the fact. 

Crowley pulled a face and bent down to pick it up. He turned it over in his hand and ran his finger down the spine, chuckling to himself. “Here, take a look,” he said, holding it out to Aziraphale.

“Take a look at what?” he muttered, taking the book back. He turned it in his hand to see what Crowley had been looking at on the spine and rolled his eyes. “A bible? Really, dear?”

“I didn’t pick it on purpose!” he protested, still grinning at the angel. “It was the only book there was! And they put it in here, not me!”

“For Heaven’s sake,” Aziraphale said flatly, putting the book down on his lap. He scrunched his hand into a fist again, still pouting over the embarrassment more than anything else. Crowley caught it this time and craned his neck to try and see what was wrong with the angel’s hand.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, stepping across the distance between them and crouching back down on the floor in front of Aziraphale’s chair. 

“That’s what happens when you throw books at people!” Aziraphale snapped and instantly felt guilty as Crowley ignored him and reached for his hand. 

“Here, le’ me see,” he said, taking Aziraphale’s hand delicately in his own. The angel’s mouth was dry as the Sahara as Crowley gently tilted his hand, frowning at it in concentration as he tried to see any marks. 

“Can’t see anything but le’ me just –“ he trailed off, caressing his thumb languidly down the angel’s fingers. The pain slipped away under the demon’s touch and Aziraphale held his breath as he watched Crowley heal him. It was an extravagant miracle, to say the least. It wouldn’t have even bruised if Crowley hadn’t done anything but he seemed proud of himself as he rocked back on his heels again and beamed up at Aziraphale. One of those rare, easy smiles, bright as the midday sun, and so carefree and open. Crowley had many smiles that Aziraphale loved but those ones were easily his favourite. The ones when Crowley forgot that he was supposed to be cool, when he forgot about the walls he had built up around his heart and let Aziraphale catch a glimpse of the real Crowley that lay buried underneath it all. The ones that Aziraphale could coax out of him every now and again and Crowley didn’t try to hide away as if he wasn’t allowed to show that much of himself to the world or wasn’t allowed to be that happy. The ones where Crowley, even for a second, really did seem to be happy, _truly_ happy and Aziraphale’s heart sang because he was the reason behind it. Yes, those were his favourites. 

He only wished he had seen Crowley’s eyes as well. He hardly ever gets to see one of those smiles without the glasses obscuring some of the view. He remembers the odd occasion where he has. He’ll never forget the way Crowley’s eyes twinkled like stars in the night sky, or the way the lines at the side of his eyes crinkled as he laughed, or the way his smile had touched his eyes. He does forget exactly what it was he had said to get that reaction out of his friend but it hardly matters. He remembers the important things. 

"There you go, angel," he said cheerfully. "All better.”

Aziraphale glanced from Crowley to his hand and back at the demon from under his eyelashes. “Thank you,” he said shyly, dropping his eyes again back to his hand. He took it back from Crowley’s tender grasp and folded them gently in his lap, ignoring the tingling in his palm where Crowley’s fingers had been pressed. “You can, um, get back into position,” he said, nodding at the sofa.

“Right,” Crowley touched two fingers to his temple and tipped them towards the angel in a sort of mock salute as he clambered ungracefully back to his feet and stumbled back onto the sofa. He reassumed his position, spread out along it like it was an extension of himself and looked at Aziraphale uncertainly.

“So I just – stay still then?” 

“Yes, that’s easiest,” Aziraphale agreed. He smoothed the paper out over the back of the Bible and briefly wondered if using the Word of God as a drawing table was some form of blasphemy before the thought floated right back out of his consciousness and his mind latched onto something else. 

“Crowley, dear, I think it would be easier without the glasses,” he said, sensing an opportunity. It was a perfectly reasonable request if Aziraphale was meant to be drawing him and Crowley very rarely said no to anything he asked of him. If he hadn’t asked, it might have happened later anyway. Crowley would sometimes take them off when he was completely plastered and they were alone and no human was going to walk into Crowley’s cabin at this time of night. But better to hurry the process along a little.

“Oh, right, yeah,” Crowley started, raising a hand to his glasses. He held the temple, looking anxiously at Aziraphale. It was different being asked to take them off. It was all right on the rare occasion he felt comfortable enough to slide them off and sling them across the sofa in the back of Aziraphale’s bookshop (or rather, when he was drunk enough) but to be asked to take them off? It was like being in the middle of a war and having the other side stop to ask you to take your armour off. 

Crowley licked his lips nervously and pried the glasses off his face, reminding himself that it was only Aziraphale who would see his eyes. The angel who had already seem them throughout the millennia and still never seemed to mind when Crowley revealed them. Then again, it was his job to love everything. Maybe he was just pretending not to be repulsed by them. Crowley was unaware that he was biting his lip as he lowered the glasses, searching for any kind of sign on the angel’s face that he was horrified. But there wasn’t any. Only a soft smile that made Crowley’s heart swell in his chest and his own mouth twitch up at the ends in reply. 

“Much better. Thank you,” Aziraphale said warmly. “Now just try not to move.”

“All right,” Crowley breathed. [2]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [2] Once it was finished, Crowley took the portrait and folded it carefully into his breast pocket. He kept it with him for the rest of their time on the ship, tucked away carefully there, in case he lost it. Nowadays, it resides safely in a frame on his bedside table. [back to text] 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: This chapter now comes with fanart and I'm deceased! The amazing [Gretactic ](https://gretacticdraws.tumblr.com/) drew a scene from this chapter so what are you waiting for? Go and look at it! And then go and check her out because she's amazing!

“Crowley, are you quite sure about this?” Aziraphale asked, hovering outside the door, clutching onto his towel with both hands to keep it over himself. He felt _exposed_ standing there, naked as a newborn, except for the towel which he felt was rather too small for this kind of thing. It covered him all right but not as much as Aziraphale would have liked. Right now, he would have liked to have been fully clothed, preferably with underwear, a shirt, a waistcoat, an overcoat, socks and shoes, a bowtie and a top hat, thank you very much, and possibly also wrapped up and hidden under a blanket for good measure. 

It wasn’t that he was embarrassed about his body. Angels and demons held very little regard for such human things as embarrassment or the concept that nudity was somehow lewd and sinful, but the problem was that Aziraphale had been on Earth much longer than all of them. He knew things. And he knew just how intimate getting naked in front of each other could be for humans. So he wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of having to strip himself down and parade around in front of a bunch of strangers. The very notion was making his throat close over.

Crowley was also apprehensive, though he at least was trying to hide it. From far away, behind the safety of still having all his clothes on and even further behind the haze of a rather lengthy session of alcohol consumption, the idea had seemed like a great one. Some well-deserved R & R after the somewhat disastrous start to the journey. [3] But standing outside the room with nothing but the drop of a towel between him and everyone else, between him and the angel…

He was an idiot. But there was nothing to be done about that now.

“Yeah, of course,” he grinned, trying to inject some confidence into his tone. “We said we were going to give it a go. Besides, it’ll be fine when we’re in. It’s meant to be relaxing.” 

“It doesn’t feel very relaxing,” Aziraphale muttered, readjusting his towel cautiously. He thought momentarily about the morals of miracling the entire room empty of people but decided against it. After all, he wasn’t exactly sure where they ended up and it seemed vastly unfair to pop them off somewhere with nothing more than a towel around their waists. 

“We’re not at the relaxing part yet,” Crowley pointed out, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t sure there would be a relaxing part. “We just have to – have to – you know.”

“Go inside.”

“Exactly.”

“Naked.”

Crowley made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. It was worse hearing it out loud, laid out in front of him like – like he was about to be. “Not yet. That bit’s after.”

The pair stayed there, wavering in the doorway. A human squeezed past to get inside. Neither of them moved a muscle. They kept their eyes purposefully high. The door closed on them again.

“This is ridiculous,” Aziraphale exclaimed eventually. “If neither of us wants to go in, then why don’t we go back and put our clothes back on and we can go for lunch? Or do anything else.”

“I want to,” Crowley said, unsurely. 

“Then why are you still out here?”

“Good point,” Crowley answered, opening the door without meaning to. He hadn’t even realised he had done it until it swung away and his hand was left hanging in mid-air. It was like he was possessed, which would have been ironic, all things considered. 

He stepped into the room.

“Oh. It’s warm,” he said lamely.

“It is the hot room, dear boy,” said Aziraphale from behind him.

“_It’s the hot ro_ \- I know it’s the hot room,” Crowley snipped. “I just meant – I – agh – uh - forget it. I’m going inside.”

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” a man dressed in one of the attendant’s uniforms greeted them politely, bowing his head just so. “Welcome to the Turkish baths. We are here to ensure the upmost relaxation for all of our guests who join us in these rooms so if there is anything at all that I can be of assistance with, please do not hesitate –“

“You can go away,” Crowley cut him off unhesitatingly with a snap of his fingers. The man straightened up suddenly like a soldier who had just heard the unmistakable footsteps of their drill sergeant approaching in the distance. His eyes were unfocused and unseeing as he stared at Crowley’s left shoulder.

“Yes, of course, sir. Have a wonderful afternoon, gentlemen.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Aziraphale admonished him, struggling to keep the relief out of his voice as the man walked off to attend to the other guests. It was hard to sound as if he meant it when in fact, he agreed with Crowley. The only thing he wanted was for some peace until this was over but there were politer ways to ask for it. Less _demonic_ ways.

“You’re right. I probably could have just told him to go away and it would have been the same thing,” Crowley agreed uncaringly, leading the way across the tiled floor to two empty teak chairs for them to sit. He slid into the one on the right, kicking his feet up and lay right back into the recline like he was made for it. He tucked his arms behind his head with a false ease and grinned back up at the angel.

“How long are we supposed to stay in here?” Aziraphale asked, perching himself uncomfortably on the edge of the other seat in the exact antithesis to Crowley. Reluctantly, he turned, lifting his feet from the ground so he could lean back into it. He readjusted his towel again anxiously, even though he had miracled it into place when Crowley had opened the door into the room full of men. There were some things that weren’t worth chancing. He had no idea how Crowley could look so comfortable, lounging next to him like he was part of the furniture itself.

“Dunno,” Crowley shrugged, hitching one knee up as he normally would until he realised what an extraordinarily bad idea that was and pulled his leg back down again. “As long as we want, I suppose. Until we’re feeling relaxed or too hot or something.”

“Do you feel relaxed?” Aziraphale asked flatly, raising a single eyebrow in question.

“I’ve only just sat down. Give it a chance,” Crowley waved a hand dismissively at him.

“I don’t see how you can relax with those glasses still on,” he muttered, pouting slightly as he folded his arms loosely over his stomach. He had been rather curious as to what Crowley’s solution would be for covering his eyes when they were in the pool. He hadn’t had a notion himself of how he could do it, short of a miracle but as it turned out, the best the demon had come up with was stubbornly refusing to take those blasted glasses off.

There had been a time once when Crowley had felt able to walk around freely, letting the world bear witness to the rich, deep yellows of his eyes but that had long passed. Aziraphale couldn’t quite pin down the transition between the time before glasses and the time after and he had often thought about it. His best guess was sometime after Jesus. All he knew for certain was once they had gone on, they very rarely ever came back off. Aziraphale could only count a mere handful of times that he had seen those eyes over the last millennia. 

Crowley raised a hand, gripping the leg of his glasses protectively as if he thought Aziraphale might snatch them from his face and toss them across the room. “I told you, I’m not taking them off.” Even from behind the dark lenses, Aziraphale knew Crowley’s eyes were fixed intently on him and it made his heart squeeze uncomfortably. Surely Crowley knew him better than that.

“I’m not trying to steal them, Crowley. Wear them if you want. Even if they do look ridiculous when you have nothing else but a towel on,” he added, side glancing the demon.

“They look better than me walking around here with yellow eyes,” he snapped back, still holding onto the glasses and eyeing Aziraphale suspiciously as if he was waiting on him to change his mind about taking them.

The angel sat up straighter with a huff, arching his shoulders back into the seat, a little put out. Of course Crowley was right. Walking around with sunglasses on in the Turkish baths may seem a touch odd but it was harmless. The humans wouldn’t pay one blind bit of attention to it as long as it wasn’t interrupting their day. Walking around with bright yellow eyes on the other hand, well now, that was almost guaranteed to raise a few eyebrows. Probably more than that. Much more. Humans could be so fickle about things they weren’t used to seeing. Not at all like Adam and Eve had been. And if Crowley felt safer hiding his eyes away from the public then who was Aziraphale to make him feel guilty for it?

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” he conceded. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Forget it ever happened.”

A companionable silence stretched out between them, as long and as still as the ocean they were floating on. Which was to say not very still at all since Aziraphale interrupted it less than ten seconds after it had begun. 

“Have you done this before?” he asked casually, wiping the first beads of sweat away from his neck with the back of his hand. A look of utter disgust crossed his face and he promptly wiped the moisture onto his towel. 

Aziraphale enjoyed quite a lot of things about these human bodies. For one thing, it was much easier to eat with a mouth and a stomach. Having hands made the task of holding a book far simpler and only having two eyes to focus on the words was much less of a headache. Sweating on the other hand was one of the more repulsive things about them. He had never understood the necessity of it. There had to be other more efficient and more importantly, less disgusting ways to cool off. Ones that didn’t smell quite so much. 

"What, Turkish baths? Nah. I walked into one of the Roman ones once and uh –,” Crowley trailed off with the wide-eyed, vacant stare of someone reliving a mildly traumatic experience. [4] He blinked a few times and grimaced. “Well, I didn’t use it. This is the first.”

"It's a bit – hot, don’t you think?” Aziraphale rubbed at his temple, indiscreetly trying to brush away the sweat collecting there. “Makes it a little difficult to breathe.”

“You don’t need to breathe,” Crowley pointed out, arching an eyebrow at him over the rim of his glasses.

“Yes but that’s beside the point,” he huffed, stupidly wasting some of the sweet oxygen that was left in his lungs. Reminding himself that he didn’t need it wasn’t much of a comfort. “Humans need to. It seems counterintuitive to make a relaxation room which makes one of the necessary processes for life difficult. That should be the opposite of relaxing.”

“They like swimming too,” Crowley argued, propping himself up onto his bony elbows. “And that can definitely stop them breathing. And – and -,” he paused, quickly running out of other examples. 

“Take your time, dear.”

“And they willingly keep pets that could kill them if they wanted,” he continued, opting to ignore the sarcasm. “And ride horses. And aeroplanes now. Humans chase things that could kill them all the time, angel. They have a thing for it. They get a rush from doing things that should in all good sense kill them and then not dying. Keeps them going, I think. So sitting in a room that makes breathing a little harder for them probably is quite relaxing to them.”

“I certainly don’t see the point,” Aziraphale said prissily, wishing at that very moment, and not for the first time, that he had his jacket on so that he could fix it out of habit. His hands twitched nervously on his stomach with nothing else to do. Aziraphale shifted again in the seat and laced his fingers together to keep them still. Crowley noticed out of the corner of his eyes.

“Some of them like the heat more than others,” he said, not pointing out that he was one of them. Crowley had always preferred the hotter climates; whether that was part of his nature as a serpent creeping through or personal preference he didn’t know or care. He also knew that Aziraphale preferred more temperate ones, which was why they had spent so much of the last handful of centuries circling around each other in London. “If it makes you that uncomfortable, we don’t have to stay.”

“I think I would prefer that. Maybe the next part will be more relaxing,” he said hopefully, sliding his hands over his towel to wipe the sweat from his palms. “All this sweating business is rather – unattractive.”

“And you’re worried about being attractive now, are you?” Crowley asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively. “Wouldn’t have thought you’d concern yourself with that kind of thing.”

“You know what I mean,” Aziraphale blushed, feeling more heat pooling in his face than had been there a moment ago. It coloured his cheeks pink which did not go unnoticed by the demon sitting next to him. Crowley stood slowly, shooting him a smug grin, which did absolutely nothing to help the colour flushing across Aziraphale’s face and asked “Coming then?”

“Yes,” he said shakily, getting to his feet. He held onto his towel reflexively, wondering if Crowley had also miracled his into place or if the demon simply cared less about whether it stayed around that skinny waist of his. Crowley at least appeared to be rather unfazed about the whole thing. Much less so than Aziraphale. [5]

They made their way to the cool room together, unhampered by the three attendants who had all very clearly gotten the message to leave the pair of them alone. There were a few other men already in the pool and Aziraphale paused several feet from the edge, watching them warily. The men themselves didn’t notice, continuing with their conversation. Crowley, however, noticed that he no longer had an angel at his side and turned on his heel, reaching to stick his hands into pockets that he didn’t currently have. 

"Angel?”

“Yes? Nothing,” Aziraphale answered quickly. “Coming.”

Crowley’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, which Aziraphale shouldn’t have been able to tell with his glasses shielding them, but he knew all the same. He couldn’t tell if that was because Crowley possessed the remarkable ability to convey his facial expressions with the rest of his body to make up for his eyes being hidden or if it was because Aziraphale knew him well enough to picture his expressions in his mind’s eye and could see them just as well with the glasses in place than without. It was possibly both.

He felt the heat rising in his cheeks again, despite the temperature in this room being much less suffocating and wished (not prayed, he was very careful not to pray because that would lead to an extremely awkward and mortifying conversation with headquarters later on) that he had never agreed to this in the first place. What had he been thinking when Crowley had suggested it? 

If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t been thinking at all. They had been drunk on wine that Crowley had managed to sneak out of the kitchen and in that beautifully cosy cabin, with Crowley lounging next to the private heater, his glass tipped at a dangerous angle above the delicate, expensive carpet and his glasses pushed back onto his head to reveal those deep yellow eyes, shimmering in the low light, what else could Aziraphale have said except yes when the demon drunkenly stammered out the notion of trying out the Turkish baths while they were there. After all, you didn’t run into those every day. 

And now here they were, just a twist of cotton away from public indecency no less. 

Aziraphale was not embarrassed about his body. He had been naked before and never given it a second thought that someone else was seeing him. But in this room, in front of all these strangers, all those eyes watching him, it felt _wrong_. Too intimate. 

“Bloody hell, it’s freezing! I didn’t think it would be as cold as this!” 

The angel snapped out of his own thoughts and looked down to find Crowley already in the water and completely naked, towel abandoned recklessly on the poolside. His stomach fluttered nervously and Aziraphale dragged his eyes up from what was obscured below the waterline to Crowley’s face. The back of his neck tingled, spreading across his jaw and into the tips of his ears and the electricity buzzing in his stomach ran up to meet it, creating a bubbling mess in the centre of his chest. Oh Lord, what was wrong with him?

Crowley shivered hard, rattling his teeth in his skull and sank further down under the water until only his head was left poking out above the surface. He did some sort of little bounce, trying to warm himself up again and remerged, resting his elbows back on the tiles at the side. 

“You sure you’re coming, angel?” he asked casually. “It’s not so bad when you’re in.”

Aziraphale swallowed. It was now or never.

“All right. But don’t look until I’m in,” he said, gingerly undoing his towel. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Crowley answered, turning his head away. He had known since Aziraphale appeared in nothing apart from that blasted towel that this was going to be a bad idea but it was only beginning to dawn on him now that it was an outright catastrophic plan of self-sabotage from the very start. Why hadn’t he seen this coming earlier? Some of the accidentally lingering touches when they passed bottles of wine to each other, or ice creams in the park were enough to make Crowley’s head explode. So why in Satan’s name had he thought that having Aziraphale naked and next to him was going to do anything else other than make him spontaneously combust into hellfire? 

He kept his word and kept his eyes off the angel until he was certain he was in the water with him, though that was as much for his own sake as for Aziraphale’s. Soon any and all ideas of relaxation had been tossed out of the window, as had Crowley’s dignity, chucked overboard like so much jetsam. Neither of them could find a thing to say to each other which were almost unchartered waters for the pair. Even the very beginning in the Garden hadn’t been as challenging as this and at that point, they had been on entirely opposite sides.

Crowley opened his mouth to say something at the same moment Aziraphale did and both of them paused awkwardly, the first sounds of aborted words getting lodged in the backs of their throats. 

“Sorry, you first,” Aziraphale murmured, dropping his eyes to the surface of the water as Crowley muttered “Go ahead.”

“Oh,” they chorused, glancing at each other for a second before they both averted their eyes to opposite ends of the room.

“You know, I think I’ve had quite enough of this room,” Crowley decided suddenly, scrambling to get out of the pool and back into his towel as quickly as possible. “It’s too cold in here. Much preferred the first one.”

“Yes, me too,” Aziraphale agreed, clambering out after him. “Not that I much preferred the first. You know, I don’t think these baths are for me, really.”

“No, nor me. We gave it our best shot but what can you do? It’s just not for us.”

“Exactly. We tried. We can move forward and forget the whole thing.”

“Yes, good idea. I think I’ll go back to my room for a bit.”

“Yes, I still have plenty of books to catch up on.”

“Well, all right. Enjoy the books and I’ll – uh – see you later,” Crowley waved awkwardly, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to get away. This would have been a much easier escape as a snake. You could hardly trip over yourself when you didn’t have feet. 

“Yes, all right. See you later, dear boy,” Aziraphale said, dashing back towards the changing room. He miracled his clothes back onto himself the second he pulled the curtain behind him. Dear Lord, what had he been thinking? What had Crowley been thinking? Suggesting something where they had to get naked in front of each other; it was preposterous. It was ridiculous. It was – it was – 

It was time to get some tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [3] Rest and relaxation [back to text]   
[4] The rating of this fic isn’t high enough for the explicit details of what Crowley experienced first-hand when he walked into that Roman bath. And Crowley would much rather leave it as a repressed image, left to rot in the dark recesses of his mind anyway. On a side note, not all of the Roman baths were like that. Crowley was very unfortunate to walk into the particular one he did when he did. [back to text]   
[5] That, of course, was a total lie. Crowley was not any more comfortable than Aziraphale but the angel was far too absorbed in his own anxieties to notice that. [back to text] 


	4. Chapter 4

“Crowley, after how the baths went, I cannot see how you could possibly think that this is a good idea.”

The demon shrugged casually without making eye contact with the angel, arms tucked behind his head. “We’d get to keep the towels this time. It’s different. It’s relaxing.”

“You said the same thing about the baths,” Aziraphale pointed out bitterly from his armchair.

“This is much less indecent than the baths and I’m speaking as an authority on indecent here.”

“Yes, well, expert or not, I fail to see how it is any different. Besides the towels,” he added with a vexed eye roll when Crowley opened his mouth to reiterate his point. “I’ve had enough of those supposedly relaxing activities to last me for the next few centuries, thank you very much.”

“Suit yourself,” Crowley answered nonchalantly. “I’m still going.”

“Go ahead. I shall stay right here and catch up on my reading.”

“Oh, come oooon, angel,” he whined, pushing himself upright. “Don’t you want to give it a go? I’d have thought if anyone would have given it a go, it’d be you. S’meant to be a luxury. And those shoulders must be sore, Satan knows they didn’t make these human bodies to carry their weight properly, especially not as long as we’ve been doing it.”

“I’m not coming, Crowley, and that’s it,” Aziraphale told him petulantly, lifting his book higher to block out the perfectly sad little moue that Crowley had puckered his lips into. “You can’t tempt me, foul fiend,” he said, acting up the part a bit. He had to, for his own sake if no one else’s. Otherwise, it would be the baths all over again and Aziraphale’s poor heart couldn’t take another incident like that so soon after the last. It was self-preservation, pure and unadulterated. 

Crowley sighed and stood up, stretching his arms out wide so that all the muscles in his back and neck squeezed tight. He arched back into it until he felt like he was going to snap in two. “All right, fine. _I’m_ going to get a massage. I’ll see you at dinner then.”

“Try not to be late, dear boy,” Aziraphale answered, his nose already lost back in his book.

  


* * *

  


Crowley had never felt so boneless in his entire existence, and that included the time he had messed up reforming his skeleton after transforming back from the snake. Those hip bones were always so bloody awkward. He slid down from the table, uncertain that his legs would take his weight anymore and held onto it tightly, double-checking all of his bones were in fact, still where they should be and were the right ones for a human. 

Satisfied that he was as human as he ever got, Crowley let go of the table and set about finding his clothes to dress. He bent down to pick up his white shirt, took one look at the buttons and then remembered that while he did have the correct number of bones to be a human, he didn’t have to obey the same laws of physics as they did and miracled his clothes back on so he didn’t have to waste time on so many bloody buttons. 

With legs as unsteady as a new born fawn, Crowley made his way back to his room, half in a daze as he skulked along the mercifully empty hallway. He opened the door, forgetting that that involved a key and turning the handle, and fell face-first onto the tiny little bed, feet still hanging off the end. He grumbled to himself – how short were these people? They all needed put a bit more effort into a late growth spurt, in his opinion – and made it long enough for him to fit. There, that was miles (almost literal miles) better.

He tucked his arms under his head and in the privacy of his room, he let his wings unfurl, sighing contentedly as they stretched out and hung lazily over the side of the bed. The tips of his primaries dragged across the thick carpet and Crowley wriggled his shoulders, relishing the friction it caused. His back and shoulders felt like new. He hadn’t realised quite how much tension he had been carrying around with him until George had worked it all out of him. Aziraphale had really missed out on this one. It was a thousand times better than the baths. A million. Crowley didn’t know why he had waited so long to get a massage in the first place. It was a brilliant idea, right up there with some of his very best, although much less likely to get a commendation from HQ. 

Too slothful to get up again (now _there_ was an idea, maybe he should try and spread the popularity, see if he could increase global levels of sloth), Crowley miracled his shoes and socks off again and switched his clothes for his black silk pyjamas without lifting a finger. If this journey wasn’t only meant to last a week, he’d stay there in that very bed for a month at least. 

He did, however, have dinner plans with a certain angel later that evening that threw a spanner into the works of that particular plan. Crowley blindly reached out an arm, feeling around for his pocket watch until his hand met with the cool silver casing. He popped it open and squinted out through one eye at it. The tiny silver second hand ticked furiously away and Crowley scowled at it accusingly until it slowed down to a rather lackadaisical stroll around the clock face. He could have a quick nap before dinner, no harm done. He would still be on time to meet the angel and Aziraphale would never have to know he had been asleep.

Aziraphale had been…fussy was the nicest way to put it (downright huffy was the accurate way) about Crowley’s sleeping patterns since the last century. Crowley couldn’t blame him for it. He had spent most of it in bed and a century without seeing each other was lonely. Any human companions wouldn’t last that long and animals were even worse, usually, unless you wanted to befriend a whale or a tortoise. 

Even with company, it wasn’t the same. No one else had the same experience of the world as them; they didn’t know the history or the inside jokes, they hadn’t shared the same traumas, they didn’t get cravings for random broths from the thirteenth century and they definitely wouldn’t understand complaints about head office without some drastic changes to details. Even other angels and demons didn’t quite live up to scratch when it came to those things. Crowley and Aziraphale were the only two beings in all of existence to have seen the Earth the way they did, save perhaps God Herself, but who knew what She was up to up there? And that meant that any long periods spend apart from each other did start to get sullen. The world seemed a little less bright and shiny, as cliché as that was, so Crowley really couldn’t bear any ill will towards Aziraphale being picky over his sleeping habits since he had ended his century-long tryst with it. He just wished he had handled it differently. 

Crowley put the watch back down and closed his eyes, shoulders heaving with a laden sigh. A few hours was fine. He would wake himself before Aziraphale ever knew. There was nothing to feel guilty about, he told himself over and over again as he reassumed his previous comfortable position, stubbornly ignoring the rocks gathering in the pit of his stomach. Everything was fine.

  


* * *

  


Crowley was late. Not that he ever turned up exactly on time; he always said it was his demonic duty to be ‘fashionably late’ but he was late, even for Crowley. And Aziraphale was hungry. He had stopped paying attention to his book around fifteen minutes ago in favour of flashing increasingly irritated glances at the clock and he had decided enough was enough. He would go and find Crowley instead. 

Tucking his book under his arm, he marched off in the direction of the demon’s room, the hard soles of his shoes clicking against the wooden decking as he went. It wasn’t a long walk; the room was next door to his and he needed to return his book before dinner anyway but the point still stood that it was rather rude to leave Aziraphale waiting without so much as a note. He carried that annoyance with him, using it to straighten out his shoulders as he rapped on Crowley’s door and waited for him to answer to give him what for.

But there was no answer. No one came to open the door. 

‘Surely, Crowley must be back by now,’ he thought to himself, knocking again and this time calling for his companion. 

“S’open,” came the sleep-thick voice.

Aziraphale’s brows knitted themselves together and he pushed open the door slowly, peering into the darkness inside. “Crowley?” he murmured, stepping in and shutting the door behind him. Huge inky wings rustled and Crowley hummed from underneath them. “Crowley, are you asleep?”

“Nonopenotme,” he mumbled, scrubbing his hand over his face and twisting himself in a way that shouldn’t be humanly possible to look blearily at Aziraphale. His short hair stuck up in unruly tufts, like tiny wildfires spreading across his head. “Sorry angel, is it dinner time already? I’ll get up, I just need –“ Crowley cut himself off with a yawn as he forced himself up from the pillow.

“You were sleeping again,” Aziraphale scowled, harshness and old angers creeping into his tone. “Crowley, we’ve just been through this. You slept through most of the last century!”

“No, Aziraphale, wait. It wasn’t like that,” Crowley bolted around, suddenly wide awake. “I was just napping!”

“You said that the last time! You promised you wouldn’t do it again!”

“And I won’t!” he pleaded desperately. “I’m not! It was only ‘til dinner. I was still coming!” 

“I’m going to dinner by myself,” Aziraphale sniffed, clenching his hands at his sides. “You can stay here and sleep if you wish.” 

“Aw, angel, wait, don’t. I’m sorry, okay? I really wasn’t going to sleep for that long. I made a promise to you.”

“I’m well aware of your promise,” Aziraphale snapped back. “At least one of us should be.”

“I am!”

“I’m going to dinner, Crowley. You can stay here and sleep or do whatever it is you demons enjoy doing in your free time.” 

Aziraphale didn’t look back as he pulled the door shut behind him. He was angry and he felt entirely justified in being so. Crowley’s promise had barely lasted a decade. Was that all that he meant to him after all this time? He had thought – well, he had thought that at least on a professional level, their promises meant more than that. After all, the Arrangement had lasted much longer and this new promise not to go off sleeping for centuries at a time again was as much for the benefit of the Arrangement as it was for – 

Aziraphale stopped in his tracks and shook the thought from the head. No, it wasn’t for his benefit. He was an angel. Angels and demons couldn’t be friends and therefore, Aziraphale couldn’t have missed Crowley’s company in the century he had slept. It didn’t work like that. Crowley had to be awake so that Aziraphale could do his job and thwart evil. He couldn’t do that if evil wasn’t around to be thwarted, that was all. Nothing personal in the slightest. 

He twisted his fingers awkwardly, mirroring the way his stomach was contorting around itself and told himself firmly that it meant nothing. He wasn’t upset about fighting with Crowley. He wasn’t. It was – it was – it didn’t matter what it was. It wasn’t important. He had a dinner to go to and that was precisely what he was going to do. Aziraphale swallowed, hoping it would take away the unpleasant feeling, and ignored the pull at the back of his mind that wanted him to go back into Crowley’s room. Dinner would be a good distraction, he thought, moving off towards the dining hall. 

  


* * *

  


The matter played on Aziraphale’s mind all throughout dinner. In the beginning, he was still furious with Crowley but as the night lengthened, the fury drained away into guilt and worry instead, eating away at the inside of his stomach. What if Crowley had gone back to sleep and the ship sank now? Would he wake up or simply sleep through all of the commotion? What if he drowned because Aziraphale had overreacted? What if it had only been a nap and Crowley really had been coming to dinner with him? He would never forgive himself if Crowley drowned because he had been too petty to check on him. 

Aziraphale fretted the whole way up to dessert, eating it all automatically, without enjoying a mouthful of the delicious food. As soon as he had finished, he left his napkin down and headed back to Crowley’s room, wondering uneasily if he would let him inside. Perhaps Crowley was angry with him too?

He knocked once timidly and pushed the door open without waiting for an answer in case Crowley had fallen asleep again. He peeked his head in around the door and Crowley, who had been curled up in a ball on his side, sprang up, knocking over the small wooden chair next to his bed with his wing. 

“I wasn’t asleep!” he protested quickly as the chair clattered to the floor. Aziraphale flinched at the noise and held his hands up placatingly, thinking that perhaps he should have waited for Crowley to answer the door to him. 

“I didn’t come to accuse you. I came to – to – um, well, that is – I –“

“I’m sorry, angel,” Crowley said for him. His wings folded in just slightly, hunching around him like he wanted to wrap them around himself but wouldn’t let himself. It made Aziraphale’s heart ache. He hadn’t seen Crowley look so openly miserable since the earthquake in Sumatra. “I wasn’t going back on the promise. I did mean it. I didn’t go back to sleep after you left.” 

“Oh, well, thank you,” Aziraphale nodded, mollified. “I – are you yawning?”

Crowley continued pulling a strange contorted face for a few seconds as he stifled a yawn and shook his head. “No,” he said a few seconds later, eyes watering and voice strained. 

“Oh, Crowley, for Heaven’s sake –“

“I’m not yawning. I’m not going back to sleep. Not when it upsets you so much,” he said, tucking his feet up under himself. He turned his head away, inclining it towards the shadows so that his expression was lost to Aziraphale. 

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re tired.”

“I’m not being ridiculous.”

“Yes you are. Go to sleep.”

“Go to -?” Crowley choked, his head snapping back to meet Aziraphale’s eyes again in his shock. “Angel, you just stormed off to eat dinner by yourself because I was asleep!”

“Yes but I didn’t know you were _tired_,” Aziraphale countered. “I thought – I thought you were escaping again and leaving me here alone - to do all the work alone. Were you really only taking a nap?”

“_Yes_, that’s what I said!”

“Oh…” Aziraphale breathed, feeling a right fool. His anger deserted him in an instant, leaving him stranded just inside the doorway. “Oh Crowley, then sleep.”

But Crowley stayed where he was, scowling uncertainly. Aziraphale sighed, rolling his eyes heavenwards. As much as Crowley lived for doing things with reckless abandon, there were certain things that he was overly cautious with, and that was something coming from Aziraphale, as if he half expected these conversations to be traps. Maybe it was an unintentional side-effect of dealing with Hell all of the time, where Aziraphale was perfectly prepared to believe that these kinds of conversations would indeed be traps. 

"A compromise, then," he suggested before Crowley had time to say anything. “You sleep and I’ll – I’ll sit here and read to make sure you keep your promise and wake up tomorrow morning.”

“You’re going to sit there all night and watch me sleep?” Crowley asked, arching an eyebrow at the principality. When he put it like that, Aziraphale could hardly question his reluctance. It did sound a bit – forward.

“No, I’m not going to watch you,” Aziraphale blushed lightly. “I’m going to read in your room while you sleep.”

“Oh, well, whatever makes you comfortable,” Crowley scratched at the back of his neck, looking down at the duvet cover. Aziraphale’s fingers found their way to each other, slotting nervously into the spaces until his hands were knitted together and fingertips squeezed tightly at his knuckles to compensate for the horrible wriggling in his stomach. 

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale muttered awkwardly, feeling the heat deepening in his cheeks. “If it makes you uncomfortable, I can leave.”

“No, no, I’m fine,” Crowley said quickly, shaking his head. “The sofa’s comfier than those chairs if you want.” 

“Thank you,” Aziraphale took the cue and went to the seat, miracling his book from his room. He tucked himself into the corner against the armrest and started to read again without another look at his companion on the bed. He didn’t want Crowley to feel like he was being spied upon. 

He listened uncomfortably from his new position with his nose deep in the book, afraid to move a muscle and acutely aware of Crowley’s eyes on him. His ears and face burned fiercely; he was certain he must be the colour of a ripe tomato. He struggled valiantly to pay attention to the words on the pages in front of him and not let his eyes drift to the bed until he heard the awkward rustling of the sheets that signalled Crowley lying back down. 

Aziraphale peered up over the pages then to find Crowley lying on his back, wings still spread wide and his head inclined against the pillow, towards his shoulder. One arm was tucked casually underneath his head and his chest rose and fell gently with each breath. He quickly glanced back down at the book, afraid to be caught staring. 

But every few minutes, his attention would drift back to the bed, back to Crowley and Aziraphale found himself staring for longer each time, his confidence growing as Crowley fell into sleep and his chances of being caught dwindled. Crowley looked immensely peaceful, more peaceful than Aziraphale could ever remember seeing him, except for the few other occasions he had witnessed him in slumber and Aziraphale was suddenly curious to know what real sleep was like. Crowley seemed to love it so. Maybe he should give it a try sometime. Usually, he would prefer to spend the time reading but Crowley looked so at ease, all loose-limbed and slack that he started to wonder if there wasn’t something to this. 

Or maybe it wasn’t the sleep at all. Maybe it was different because it was Crowley – as many things were – and what Aziraphale wanted wasn’t so much to spend time sleeping but to spend time with his friend. Not that he would ever admit to that. 

Something warm blossomed deep in his gut and Aziraphale smiled softly at the sleeping demon. It would almost be a shame to wake him in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boys are no longer fighting! Yay! And just in time for the final chapter! How utterly convenient.


	5. Chapter 5

Aziraphale knew. For once, the weather was right on cue. They had left Ireland under cloud cover (which was the only way anyone ever left Ireland, Crowley had pointed out) and sailed into a headwind but it had cleared soon after and Saturday had been mild. Sunday morning had been another story altogether. Strong winds had battered the ship, throwing up 8 foot waves which splashed onto the top deck. [6] One had caught Crowley by surprise and soaked him head to toe. He looked as if he had been dipped head first into the saltwater swimming pool in the first class deck until he had miracle himself dry and salt-free again. 

“Good news!” he announced as the water evaporated from his clothes and hair. “The ship isn’t on fire anymore.”

“It isn’t?” Aziraphale asked, surprised. After having burned for a week and a half total, he had definite doubts that the humans would ever be able to put it out. “Well, that’s – a relief. That’s wonderful news, really. Good job, humans. Well done. Commendations for all involved.” 

“So nothing left to worry about now,” Crowley said.

“No, nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. Not one single thing.” 

Crowley frowned suspiciously at the angel and Aziraphale dropped his glance, turning his attention away to the decking. 

“I was thinking of going to the reading room for a bit,” he told the wooden floors. “I’d rather avoid the steam room again if at all possible and lunch isn’t for another few hours yet. I still have some books that I need to get through so I should really be off, dear boy.” He turned on his heels, almost running in the direction of the reading room before Crowley had a chance to answer. 

It was coming. It was coming today. He was fairly certain of that now. They had to leave. Aziraphale didn’t have any other choice. He wasn’t allowed to meddle in the Plan and Crowley was a demon. He was meant to enjoy this sort of destruction. Which left them with no other option but to watch and then get to a safe distance and move on with their lives. It seemed heartless but who was Aziraphale to judge what the Almighty had deemed good? This was the Plan and he had to stick to it, whether it made sense to him or not.

  


* * *

  


Aziraphale couldn’t focus. He had been trying to read his book as he waited on the inevitable but every wave that crashed onto the deck dragged his attention away. It was an entirely unfamiliar situation for him and one that he did not care for in the slightest. When he read, everything else fell away from him but this time, the world wouldn’t budge. It kept stubbornly harassing his consciousness, reminding him that they were all on the brink of something and that there was no escape, literal or figurative. It made his stomach feel like it was full of eels.

But then, it stopped. The winds died down and the waves calmed. It was eerily still. Rather, it was eerie to Aziraphale, who knew what was in store. No one else was in the least perturbed. In fact, most passengers were rather glad that they were no longer getting wet, except for one who was better left unmentioned. 

And it was cold. Bitterly cold. 

Crowley came to find him eventually. He always did when it was cold. 

It grew dark as they sat together and Aziraphale started to hope beyond hope that he had read it wrong. Maybe they had another few days yet. Or maybe the Almighty had changed Her mind and called the whole thing off with the subsidence of the earlier storm. It was almost midnight. Surely, that meant it wasn’t going to happen now. 

The horrific grinding noise outside begged to differ. 

"What the Heaven was that?" Crowley exclaimed, jumping up in his seat. He had almost fallen asleep in the low light, sitting next to the angel and being rocked gently by the soothing waves but the sound of crunching metal had kick-started his body’s fight or flight response. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed, his face contorting between anguish and guilt as he closed his book over gently in his lap. “So it is happening.”

“Happening?!” Crowley gaped at the angel and his glasses fell down his face, barely hanging on the tip of his nose. “What’s happening, angel? What was that sound?”

“We need to go, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, standing up suddenly. “Now. Come on.”

“Come on? Where – what’s -? Did your lot do something? Did you know this was going to happen?”

“Yes but we don’t have time for that now, Crowley,” Aziraphale insisted, taking the demon’s wrist and pulling him to his feet when he failed to stand of his own accord. “We need to leave.”

“Aziraphale. What’s happening?” Crowley planted his feet stubbornly. He didn’t pull his hand free from Aziraphale’s grip but he did tug it back a little, trying to slow the angel until he got some answers. 

Aziraphale sighed and stopped in his tracks. He turned slowly to face the demon, who looked rather befuddled with his glasses only just clinging to his nose and his bright yellow eyes alarmed and on show for the world to see, and released his hand. “It’s going to sink. It was deemed – blasphemous for – for the claims the company made about God not being able to sink it and well, um, you see, it has been decided that – that an example has to be made. So that the humans know that – that – “

“It’s going to sink?” Crowley repeated softly. “Now?”

“Yes.”

“But – but there are kids!”

“…Yes,” Aziraphale admitted, fidgeting with the book as he looked anywhere but at Crowley’s horrified face.

“But they weren’t the ones even being blasphemous! No one on this ship was! It was the company!” Crowley continued, looking more horrified than all the throngs of Heaven would about this disaster-in-the-making. “You can’t kill all these people for what the company did! They just wanted to get to America!”

“They chose to journey on it,” Aziraphale explained desperately, unsure if he was trying to convince Crowley or himself of the fairness and reasoning behind it. “They chose to use this ocean liner which made blasphemous claims and by association, they have to be punished. It isn’t for us to decide.”

“So they’re all just going to die?” Crowley asked bitterly.

“Yes.”

“But – but they have lifeboats. And distress rockets. It’s meant to be unsinkable. They designed it so it wouldn’t just sink. There was a whole thing about it!”

“Crowley, dear,” Aziraphale started gently. “There’s nothing we can do. It’s going to sink.”

Crowley pulled a face that Aziraphale couldn't put a name to but would go for something along the lines of ‘distressed anguish’ if he was hard pressed and started to walk away. “I’m going, angel!”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you! We need to go!”

“No, I’m going to – this is blasphemy! It’s a sin! I’m supposed to be promoting that kind of thing and that won’t happen if I just let it sink and let all the humans go with it!”

“Crowley, you can’t!” Aziraphale called after him. “There’s nothing you can do!”

But the demon kept walking away from him and Aziraphale was going to lose him. The thought made his stomach lurch more than it had when he had heard the fatal sound of crunching metal. He had to make sure Crowley didn’t stay behind and get himself discorporated by doing something stupid. 

"Crowley, wait! Where are you going? It's too late!" Aziraphale cried, doing what might generously be called a small jog or what more accurately might be called stumbling in a pretence of actual running after him. Crowley didn’t stop.

“I’m going to see what happened.”

“It hit something.”

“No. Something hit it,” he said darkly, shoving his glasses back up into their rightful place.

Crowley continued his march outside without slowing down, which Aziraphale thought was rather unfair, given that Crowley’s form had longer legs than his. The angel struggled, much to his chagrin, to keep up as Crowley stomped over to the starboard railings and peered down over the side into the inky black water. Aziraphale caught up then, resting his hands on the metal bars and peered over with him. He couldn’t see anything. The water, the hull, the hole, the night itself were all far too dark to be able to distinguish any of them from each other. Aziraphale couldn’t even be sure there was a hole, or at least, one above the water line.

Crowley mustn’t have been able to tell either. He stared over the side, unblinking for several moments before he pushed himself away from the railings with a low growl and started to head for the staircase.

“Where are you going now?” Aziraphale all but whined after him. Really, this was getting ridiculous. There was nothing they could do to stop this now. That was the whole point. 

“Going to get a better look,” Crowley answered determinedly.

“You’ll get yourself discorporated! Crowley, please! Have some sense!” he begged.

But Crowley went off without him, leaving Aziraphale standing alone on the deck.

  


* * *

  


Whatever Aziraphale had been expecting, this was not it. He thought – well, he had thought the humans might be a little more panicked about their impending deaths but most of the passengers seemed to think the whole thing was one big joke. Of course the Titanic wasn’t sinking. Other ships hit icebergs and still managed to sail all the way to port and this was the _Titanic_, for crying out loud. She could have sailed all the way back to England after a glancing blow with an iceberg, never mind the measly few hundred miles left until New York. [7] The majority of the passengers and the crew refused to come outside for the first forty minutes or so, which left Aziraphale pacing the deck and wondering where the Heaven Crowley had gotten himself. [8] Some of them started playing football with the pieces of ice that had fallen from the iceberg onto the deck when they had struck it. It was driving Aziraphale to distraction. If only they could see how much danger they were really in.

  


* * *

  


“This isn’t fair, angel.”

“This was the Plan, Crowley,” Aziraphale answered, face wrought with guilt. He couldn’t bring himself to meet the demon’s eyes. “It’s – “

“Don’t you dare say ineffable,” he spat. “Not now. Not again. There are children, for Go- and they all think they at least have a chance in the lifeboats. They don’t know what we know. Did you know there’s a boat right over there? If you squint, you can make out its lights and it’s just not responding. Missed the flares, apparently, and there’s no answer on the wireless. Just ignoring the disaster happening right next to it. That’s _cruel_, to show them salvation, tantalisingly close and let them all perish anyway. No one’s coming for these people.”

“I know…”

“But teasing them like that? That can’t be – how can that be what’s right? That’s something my lot should have come up with.”

“Crowley, it’s not my place – “

“To _question_. I know,” he rolled his eyes. “But – well –“

“Well?”

“_Well_, wouldn’t it – wouldn’t it make more sense to have some survivors?”

“Crowley, I’ve told you –“

“No, wait, hear me out,” he said, holding his hands up defensively. Aziraphale sighed heavily. They had been down this road before and it was never pretty. Crowley had much more heart than he ever cared to admit and Aziraphale hated watching it be crushed every time they wound up in a situation like this. “The whole point of this is because of blasphemy, right? To punish the bad humans who defied God by getting on a ship. But if everyone dies, who’s going to know, huh? Ships disappear all the time and no one is going to find this one out here after it sinks so how do they know it even sank? It’ll all be speculation and you know what humans are like with that. Half of them won’t even think twice about a disappearing ship. Maybe it just got lost and they’re all on some island somewhere having a wonderful time.”

“Crowley…” Aziraphale started tiredly.

“_But_ if there are survivors, people who were on it as it sank, who can go back and say “Yes, we saw the unsinkable ship sink and God must be really mad at us,”, well, now that’s a message. Think about it, Aziraphale. You would be really proving the point of not defying God if people can go back and say “We saw what happened to all those people who did.” And most of the ones on those lifeboats are women and children who haven’t really done anything wrong. They were just brought on by their husbands and their fathers – they didn’t do anything, really and the Almighty acknowledged that and let them go to warn everyone else so this kind of thing never happens again!”

Crowley’s voice had risen until he was almost shouting and his words were small and tight in his throat. Aziraphale had seen it before, many more times than he cared for. He hated that expression. He never put a name to it because it looked an awful lot like pain and a demon being pained over the loss of human life was confusing when lined up with everything Aziraphale was meant to believe so he wilfully ignored it. Ignorance was bliss, after all. 

“When you put it like that,” he said, softening. He could see how much it was hurting Crowley, whether he wanted to or not, and a tiny, small, nameless (big, massive, unspoken) part of Aziraphale felt the same way. “After all, it was part of the Great Plan that everyone knew it was a sin to blaspheme. Someone really ought to be around to carry that message back.”

“My point exactly.”

“All right,” Aziraphale agreed, miracling the distress call through the jumbled mess of communications so that someone had a chance to respond to it. He didn’t think it would do any good.

  


* * *

  


Aziraphale didn’t see Crowley again until after the first lifeboat had departed. He had helped the willing women and children into it and watched helplessly as the half empty boat disappeared over the side and floated away into the darkness. He wondered what fate was going to meet those who had been brave enough to leave the bigger ship for the tiny wooden one. It seemed even crueller to let the humans think they had a chance at escaping. Were they going to be overcome by waves and drown like everyone else? Or were the ones who tried to save themselves going to be punished more harshly and allowed to starve or dehydrate agonisingly slowly, adrift at sea and surrounded by undrinkable water, taunting them? Aziraphale shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about.

It was then that he spotted Crowley emerging from one of the rooms. He shouted for him but Crowley didn’t hear him over the raucous. Just as the first lifeboats were being prepared, high-pressure steam had started to vent from the boilers as they were plunged into the icy seawater and subsequently made conversation almost impossible. The sound the steam made as it escaped from the valves was low and deafening, worse than the first thunderstorms, and the crew were yelling instructions over it, trying to make themselves heard. He couldn’t help but feel like it was the ship unleashing its fury (or maybe picking up on a certain demon’s) at being treated like this. 

Crowley walked on without noticing him and Aziraphale’s stomach sank into his shoes.

  


* * *

  


People finally started taking it seriously. Distress flares had been fired, not that anyone nearby was going to respond by the looks of things. The ship Crowley had pointed out to him sat where it was, unmoving. Its lights twinkled prettily, miles away across the black water and did nothing else. There was no answer from it. No sign of action. It sat and it spectated and it made no move to help; a pretty being of light, nearby and distant all at once. Aziraphale detested the irony in that. He turned his back to it spitefully and went back to helping people climb aboard the lifeboats, praying that his signal had gotten through to someone who could get there in time. Even if only one person made it through this disaster. 

The lifeboats were still leaving in drips and drabs; sad little wooden boats that had been well under capacity until the seriousness of the situation had become apparent. The remaining few were now stuffed full of women and children and a few men to do the rowing for them. Everyone else knew now that they were staying behind to die. 

Except for Aziraphale. And he hoped Crowley.

  


* * *

  


In the end, the two of them sat on the iceberg and watched. Crowley had his wings out, almost impossible to see against the black night engulfing everything around them and tucked them around himself securely. Aziraphale watched openly, without the comfort. He felt he didn’t deserve it. 

They watched together as the ship listed and groaned awfully in its death rattle. Screams rang out everywhere, piercing holes through the air. People flailed and swam and struggled to find pieces of debris to hang onto. They shivered and sobbed and wailed and kissed each other goodbye and agonisingly slowly, they went still and silent. The lights flickered out permanently as the stern rose higher and higher into the air until it hung almost vertically with people still clinging on for dear life. Finally the ship broke in two and the bow disappeared from view under the water. The stern floated a few minutes more before it too sank under the depths, taking the last of the humans down with it. 

They said nothing as the once great ship slipped beneath the icy water, out of their view forever. There was nothing to say. 

Crowley shuddered violently and Aziraphale suspected that the little pants of breath he was letting out weren’t due to the cold. Aziraphale leaned in a little closer and Crowley didn’t pull away. Emboldened, Aziraphale reached one hand out and placed it on Crowley’s thigh. A few seconds later, Crowley’s hand found its way around Aziraphale’s and didn’t let go. No one was watching them now.

They stayed together silently, listening as the screams and cries went quiet as people lost their battles with the ocean. They watched as the Carpathia arrived (miraculously) about an hour and forty minutes after the ship had finally disappeared. They watched for hours as the lifeboats were brought towards their rescue, as people were hoisted out of the boats and brought onto the bigger ship. They watched the Mount Temple and the Californian arrive at 9:15, fifteen minutes after the last survivors had been brought aboard the Carpathia. The sight made them sick with rage as they realised that was probably part of the original plan; to have all the rescuers show up hours too late to rescue anyone, though neither one of them would admit it out loud. 

They watched as the Carpathia moved off again, taking its survivors to their original destination and only when it was finally out of sight and the other two ships stuck around, continuing the pointless search for more survivors did either of them break their silence.

“They won’t find anyone else now,” Aziraphale murmured, afraid to break the quiet that had settled between them. It felt decadent with so many dead surrounding them. He kept his eyes high on the horizon, not wanting to see the bloated bodies and the wreckage floating sickly on the surface. 

Crowley stretched his shoulders back and rolled his neck in a lazy half circle, easing his muscles back into work after having been frozen in place for so long and nodded. When he spoke, his voice was so soft that Aziraphale could have missed it under the sounds of the passing ships. It spoke in volumes of grief. 

“Yeah. You’re right. It’s time to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [6] 2.4m for all the metric systems readers. [back to text]   
[7] Ask Google or Wikipedia for the conversions on this one. I’m not doing them all. [back to text]   
[8] He ignored the few passengers who had made their way up on deck but if he had looked, Aziraphale might have spotted the little girl with the green ribbons still in her hair, holding her mother’s hand and a cane with a snake’s head in the other. [back to text] 
> 
> So that's it! We're at the end! If you've made it this far, I just want to say thank you so much for sticking with it. You're the best! I really hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
